


Comfort

by CrackingLamb



Series: Just Like Fire - Prompt Fills for La'vise Lavellan [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fill, post-All New Faded For Her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: It was supposed to be the Promise.  But all Dirthavaren offers is death.Now Solas and La'vise must both endure.  At least they have each other.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Just Like Fire - Prompt Fills for La'vise Lavellan [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901281
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	Comfort

“The next time you have to mourn,” La'vise said, “you don't have to do it alone.”

“I'll think on it. And thank you, Inquisitor.”

Solas walked away, back towards the keep and his sanctuary in the rotunda. She watched him go, hugging herself. Was there such a thing as secondhand bereavement? She ached to comfort him, knowing well what it was to lose someone you cared about. Even if that person was a spirit. His loss put into perspective many things about him.

He saw them as people. La'vise admittedly had little experience in such things. She wasn't a mage. And the Dalish were wary of anything that came from the Fade as a precaution against demons. But she'd seen it with her own eyes. The monster they'd released from bondage transformed into a small, vulnerable figure with eyes that glowed with veilfire. She had spoken with feeling, even if her words were few that La'vise knew. But he did.

And he'd had to dissipate her. From what La'vise understood, it was akin to killing her. She couldn't imagine the pain and horror of that act. Or that he preferred to be alone afterwards.

She turned on her heel and went back into the Great Hall, seeing the eyes of her guards on her where she stood, still hugging herself, an equally small, vulnerable figure with too much heaped on her shoulders. _Inquisitor_. No, she was just an elf. An elf with feelings she didn't know what to do with. She just knew _she_ wouldn't want to be alone at a time like this. But she could wait until she was invited. Everyone dealt with grief in their own way.

***

She couldn't get it out of her mind.

Her ancestors called the land Dirthavaren – the Promise. One that had not been kept. It lit an old, racial anger that beat in La'vise's veins. For less than 300 years her people had called the Dales home. And then they were scattered, chaff on the wind. Never again would the Dalish submit. And never again would the elves of Halamshiral call their world _theirs_. What little history was passed from generation to generation had sparse details. She had learned more of the history of her people from books found in human libraries across the Emerald Graves and beyond than she had at her Keeper's knee. She took copious notes and sent them back to Deshanna faithfully, taking full advantage of the fact that Josephine kept her stocked with expensive paper and good ink. This hard won knowledge would not be lost again, if she could help it.

She sat back in her chair, alone in her chamber, and set down her fountain pen, making sure it did not clatter and spill ink across her page. It was not easy to think about the land humans called the Exalted Plains. It had _hurt_ , seeing it with her own eyes. Seeing the devastation and ruin of the Promise. Solas had been with her, of course, and his eyes had been hard, the mask he wore to cover his thoughts brittle and cracking. Cole had whispered to him, too soft to carry. Their murmuring conversation had carried on the whole time they rode through the broken, tortured land of her forebears.

Cassandra had kept silent on the matter, for which La'vise was grateful. Although she caught the Seeker's eyes suspiciously wet as they made camp near what was obviously an elven ruin, now nothing more than a few stones outlining a foundation. La'vise had not slept well in that place. She didn't think anyone else had either.

Despair hung over that land, as sere as the grass. The stench of smoke and blood and death was an inescapable miasma. Not even the roaming herds of halla, nor the guardian wolves watching over them, could brighten her spirits there. Everywhere they went there were battles. The warring factions of the Orlesians bled over into the constant struggle against the risen undead. Solas said the Veil was desperately thin, that spirits pressed too heavily against it, piled on each other like so many bodies in a mass grave. There had been many rifts.

She hated it. She hated the land stolen from her people and she hated the humans who had done it, still fighting over its carcass 700 years later like savages. They called her the Herald of Andraste, who was their Maker's Bride, who had made the Promise. And all she could think about when they were there was how to place her feet carefully so she did not trip over the bones of the People.

And now Solas had lost his friend there too. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

***

The rotunda was quiet when she entered it, many hours later. She carried a book with her that she'd found on one of their journeys, a journal written in a hand she could barely decipher. She was getting better at it, but she needed help from time to time, and she knew Solas could do that.

Her heart was heavy, she didn't really want to disturb him. But she needed this to send back to her Keeper. He turned to her as soon as he heard her enter. He was standing near a blank wall, the riot of colors from his murals absent in this spot. She wondered if he was contemplating the next one, or just needed the emptiness of that patch to reflect the emptiness of his sorrow.

“What do you need of me?” he asked, as polite and mild-mannered as always. There was no sign that he was still affected by the spirit's death, but she knew him well enough now to know that he was a master of hiding things.

“I have...I'm having trouble with some translations. I wondered if you could help me, if it's not too much trouble?”

“It is no trouble,” he assured her. He held out his hand for her book and she crossed to him. As he took it, she could feel his eyes on her. “Are you all right?”

Her eyes shot to his and she realized she hadn't washed her face or combed her hair. She felt gritty and wrung out like a rag. She must look it, too. She flushed with something almost like shame at letting him see her so broken, but his smile was soft. He brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the tears that still lingered on her skin.

“You have been crying,” he said.

“I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“I failed you. The only thing you have asked of me, and I couldn't...I couldn't...”

Solas set the book down on a table and took her into his arms. This wasn't how she thought this would go. But she could not deny that the feel of him holding her, comforting her, was _good_. She relaxed into him, and in turn, she felt him relax into her.

“It is not your fault,” he whispered into her hair. “There was little you could do. And what you could, you did. That is more meaningful to me than anything. You have been a true friend to me, and I treasure it.”

She shuddered against him, and his arms came around her tighter. She didn't know how long they stood there like that, but finally her tears eased, the burden of their mutual sadness made lighter by each other. She tipped back her head to look at him and found a lopsided grin. “Is that all I am?”

He smiled back and wiped her cheeks again. “No, La'vise, that is not all you are. You are much more than a friend.”

The moment stretched, and she thought perhaps he might kiss her, but he didn't. Still, the warmth in his gaze poured over her and she felt better. She could see in his eyes that he did too. All at once she remembered why she had come to the rotunda in the first place and stepped out of his arms, feeling the cold loss immediately. “My book...”

Solas drew her back and wrapped her in his embrace again. There was something in his expression that she couldn't quite name. If she didn't know any better, she would call it greed, but that was simply ridiculous. “It can wait. Let me hold you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I call Solas, Cassandra and Cole my comfort squad. I love their banters with each other, they're so soothing and gentle. And the bonds of their friendships are so solid. I almost always takes them with me exclusively to the Exalted Plains. There's just no other way I can get through that depressing board.
> 
> In other news, happy Hallowe'en!


End file.
